Book 1 in the "Great Death" series.
A man and his daughter drive into a massive meteor shower that disrupts their lives, but it’s only the beginning. It’s the beginning of the end, or is it? An Apocalyptic tale that focuses on individuals trying to maintain love, hope and family amongst death and dying. Hopefully it’s not overly negative, with a lot of humor and positive emotions, but there is a lot of death in it.
This is an adult story, with segments of violence, sex and death. Not appropriate for children.

Rating: Unrated

Sample Chapter

01: There Wasn’t a Cloud in the Sky

(This is a sample chapter, just to give you a feel for the writing and an introduction to the basic story)

Excerpt from the “History of the New World”, a chronicle of the
events that drastically shook the whole of human existence, and that
defines the central event that caused it:

The Great Death: A term used to
describe the great pandemic that destroyed human civilization in year
1NY (“New Year”, which denotes events occurring after this event).

The actual date of this event is unknown. Although time has been
recorded ever since based on that date, most people started recording
time from when they recovered, not from the occurrence itself, not many
people wanting to remember that event. The pandemic also took a while to
unfold, even though it was said to have swept over the world in record
time.

Despite the widespread loss of electricity there were clocks that
continued working, but the survivors refused to keep track using the old
timescale. Most went so far as to stop recording their birthdays,
listing the date of their birth as day 1, when their lives started over.
Since everyone recorded day 1 from the day they recovered from the
illness, whenever two survivors met, whoever had been conscious the
longest claimed the right to record keeping, although it was suspected
many individuals lied about the date to inflate their status.

We know many of the events that led up to the Great Death, but no one
has been able to pinpoint how close to the other recorded events the
Great Death was.

“And then she said, ‘I don’t have any clue what you’re talking
about,’” Alice said with the enthusiasm only a young teenager can
conjure, over a drama only a teenager could take so seriously. David
Scott, her father, nodded patiently, even though he had no clue who she
was talking about. But he was encouraged she was so enthused, whatever
it was about. He was taking her to his house for the weekend. He was
taking her home.

David had worked in a big corporation for years, punching numbers and
doing analysis. He’d graduated near the top of his class, and planned
to accomplish great things. He’d certainly made a lot of money, but he’d
hated what he was asked to do. He realized, after having worked hard at
his career, that the only ones benefitting from his work were the large
corporations that used his efforts to shortchange the average American.

He’d managed to develop and patent a new mathematical process which
helped those selfsame corporations do away with literally thousands of
jobs, making them a boatload of money. But David earned enough from it
to retire early. That wasn’t the problem. The problem, and the reason he
only had access to his daughter every other weekend, was that he
stopped making money.

Instead he dedicated himself to building a “monstrosity out in
nowhere”, as his ex-wife called his home. David undertook building a
home that was as far from the modern world as he could stand. He built
it in the side of a mountain in a small remote town in West Virginia.
His ex, Linda Evers, since she’d resumed her maiden name, thought that
was too much and that he was simply trying to “hide from the world”.
She’d resented being removed from society, being taken from the city and
forced to do without. She saw it as him losing his drive. She said he
no longer had the motivation to get ahead, and she couldn’t live with
someone with no ambition in life anymore. He’d tried arguing with her,
but it hadn’t helped. They’d divorced shortly thereafter. David hadn’t
fought it, figuring if she was that unhappy then she deserved her
freedom, but he missed his daughter, Alice.

That was why he treasured every other weekend so much. When he’d been
forced to discuss child custody arrangements, Linda had argued that
he’d chosen to live too far away from everything that a young child
would need, and the judge, whom Linda had insisted on involving, had
agreed with her. So instead of having equal time, he only got 20
weekends a year. Linda got the major holidays as well.

But Alice loved the little time she spent with her father. He wasn’t
concerned with ‘mundane events’ like dance class, soccer lessons and the
many activities her mother scheduled her for every day. Whenever she
visited her father she got to actually play in the woods like a wild
woman. She could climb trees, scale the mountain behind the house, and
skinny dip in the nearby pond. While she wasn’t quite a tomboy, she was
when she visited her father, and she enjoyed the ability to relax the
demeanor that her mother insisted she continually maintain.

She’d been helping her father build his house all these years, so she
now felt it was partially hers as well. After all, she worked hard
building it, just as he had. She knew every inch of it, and felt
possessive of it. She could point out the stair railings she’d
installed, the tile she’d help lay, the plumbing lines she assisted
with. She’d learned a lot. She’d learned all the types of things her
mother would never dare involve herself with.

Linda was, in a word, obsessed with her role in life. At least as far
as Alice was concerned. “If you want to get ahead, you have to play the
roles you want to assume,” she’d tell her daughter. Thus Alice was
never able to dress in jeans and let her hair down. She always had to
wear dresses, and she had to have her hair maintained all the time. She
could only associate with the kids of other upwardly mobile
professionals. Most of the activities she was scheduled for were
designed to allow her to meet “important people”, which she already
recognized meant rich people who could give her a “boost up” in life.
Thus she enjoyed the occasional chances to escape them with her father.

But now her father was asking about school, and as well as she did in
school, she felt it was yet another duty she had to do for her mother.
She had to maintain her grade point average, she had to take part in
science fair projects, she had to do volunteer work for several ‘service
organizations’. It was too much for her, so when he asked her about
school, she simply talked about her day-to-day interactions with the
other kids. She knew he hated it, and she knew he never really listened,
but he was always very patient and would never interrupt for fear of
alienating her.

“So then Betty says she doesn’t really like him,” she explained, not
even sure if she had the right people in her story. She wasn’t quite
this caught up in the lives of everyone at her school. Well, she was.
After all her mother insisted she knew everyone who was ‘important’. She
just never enjoyed the whole ‘social networking thing’ very much. But
if it kept her father from focusing on whether she was improving her GPA
or not, she’d rather talk nonsense as long as she could.

Alice really loved her father, just as she loved her mother, but her
dad was much easier to take, and he didn’t qualify his love based on how
well she did in a wide variety of tasks. Sure, dad liked to work with
her around the house, but if she got bored and wandered off to stare at
the clouds he wouldn’t reprimand her. He’d insist that she do a good
job, that whenever she did a task she do the best she could at it, even
if it wasn’t a great job, but when she was ready to quit he’d let her,
knowing she’d worked hard while they were at it. She always felt she
deserved the breaks when she eventually took them.

“But everyone knows that isn’t true,” she continued with her story,
“because she talks about him all the time. Just this past Tuesday, she
was going on and on about what he looked like while he was working…” she
stopped speaking mid-sentence as her attention was diverted by
something she saw out the window.

“Uh… Dad… what’s that?” she asked, pointing up at the sky to the left through the windshield ahead.

David looked up, taking his eyes off the road where he’d been
concentrating. As long as he’d worked in the city he’d driven the long
daily commute through the heavy traffic, and while he was still good in
heavy traffic, it still made him nervous. There was too much that could
go wrong since there was so little that he could control. At home he
controlled everything, aside from random acts of nature. Here, there
were dozens of possible risks, none of which he had any control over.

It took a second, since he didn’t see anything at first, but then….

“There it is again,” Alice cried.

“Damn,” David said, forgetting his promise to his ex-wife not to
swear in front of their daughter, “That’s a meteor. At least I think it
is. It may be a meteorite. No, wait, actually it’s a meteoroid when it’s
out in space, a meteor while in the atmosphere, like that one, and a
meteorite when it hits the ground, if it survives that long,” he
explained, going overboard in his explanation of something Alice was
more interested in observing herself. “But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a
daylight meteor shower before. You should pay attention since these
don’t occur very often.”

“Man, that is so neat,” Alice exclaimed. “Did you know this was scheduled for today?”

“No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “Believe it or not, nature doesn’t
always remember to schedule everything with me like she does with your
mother. Sometimes she likes to have some fun of her own by surprising
us.”

“There are more of them. They seem to be increasing. I thought those only happened at night?”

“Well, technically they can happen anytime, since they’re just
objects in space that enter the Earth’s atmosphere. The only reason we
associate them with nighttime is because they’re hard to see in full
daylight, whereas at night they’re easier to see,” he said, launching
into his ‘education mode’, as he called it. He tried to make education
fun for Alice by bringing up odd facts and little scientific or history
minutia to entertain her. He knew she resented the education that his ex
forced on her, and he wanted her to have her own fascination with life,
science and the world at large.

“So why are they so bright?” Alice asked.

“I guess it’s because these are bigger than the ones you typically
see at night,” he told her. “I didn’t see anything in the paper about a
meteor shower,” he continued. “Normally they report events like this so
us ‘country folk’ can go out at night and stare at the sky.”

Alice giggled, since they were both aware of what her mother thought
of his decision to live out in the country. Alice figured he was one
very intelligent member of the ‘country folk’, as he held a couple of
degrees and seemed to know something about just about everything.

“Look, they’re coming down faster now,” she observed, pointing at the sky as the trails of the meteors began to fill the sky.

“Here, let me turn on the radio and see if anyone is reporting on
this. Maybe they’ll tell us what it is,” David replied. He liked
teaching Alice to research things and to keep herself informed. He
didn’t harangue her about it, but he wanted her to know how to learn
things on her own so she could develop her own interests.

He turned the radio on and jumped from station to station, but no one
seemed to be talking about it at the moment. “Guess we’ll have to wait
for the news to come on. I’ll turn on NPR. They’re more likely to report
it than anyone else since they like to remind everyone how smart they
are,” he teased, since he was so educated as well. What he didn’t need
to mention was that he didn’t have any of the premier channels found on
satellite radio, believing the free AM/FM was fine for his parents and
it was fine for him.

Needless to say, NPR didn’t have anything about it either. “Guess
we’ll wait for their news on the hour,” he said, giving up on the radio.

When he looked up again, he saw it was indeed getting much heavier.
The sky was alive with motion and the red of high altitude fires. David
began to get nervous and started thinking this might become more serious
than just a brief science lesson. Shifting his gaze from the road to
the sky, he observed that the meteors seemed to be moving towards him.
Not that the trails were heading towards him, as they seemed to go in
all directions, but they seemed to be getting more numerous the farther
they drove.

“I think you’d better get into the back seat, Alice.”

“Why? This is fun. I’ve never seen something like this,” she argued.

“Just humor me and do it.”

“But you always say not to climb around in the car while it’s
moving,” she said as she did it anyway. She was young and thin, so
scrambling over the center console and through the narrow gap between
the seats was no problem for her.

“We’ll make an exception in this case,” he told her. “It’s probably nothing, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

Alice heeded her father’s advice. He didn’t normally carry on about
perceived dangers. That was her mother’s specialty. Linda would stress
about random men on the street, about vans that drove through the
neighborhood when she was younger, or about germs on door handles.
However if her father casually mentioned she should watch out for
something, there was usually a very good reason to be cautious, as she’d
learned many times while working around the house. He never tried to
scare you into doing something, instead he always understated
everything.

But he was right. The streaks in the sky were getting much more
common, until soon the sky lit up like a Christmas tree display. The sky
literally rippled flame, only faded because of the sunshine washing it
out. Not only that, but David observed occasional nearby streaks. He
glanced back and saw Alice still staring up at the sky out her side
window.

“OK, you’d better move away from the window. Listen carefully, I want
you to climb down in the footrest area between your seat and the front
seat,” he explained.

“Really? Why?”

Just then the answer was made clear, as there was a brief flare and a
loud bang as a small meteor slammed into the ground a ways from them.
The ground shook as the shockwaves rolled across the ground.

“No, I don’t think we’ll be hit. The chances of us being hit from
something falling from the sky are pretty remote, but what I’m afraid of
is ricochets. When a meteor hits the ground it’s likely to throw
remnants into the air. Meteors can be travelling at thousands of miles
an hour. The atmosphere actually slows them down, but even small rocks
can do a lot of damage traveling at those speeds. The rocks, dirt and
fragments they throw off when they hit can travel at hundreds of miles
an hour. Again, the pieces are likely to be small, but those pieces can
be moving at a high rate of speed, so they’d actually be more dangerous
than the original meteor.”

“Really?” Alice asked as she struggled to do as her father asked her. “Why would that be?”

“It’s trajectory, honey. A meteor is coming more or less straight
down, whereas anything it throws up would be more likely to travel out
to the sides.” Just as he said this, they both heard a loud crack as the
back window broke. They both glanced back and saw a small hole in the
glass. That was when Alice decided it was probably a good idea to keep
her head down as her father had originally suggested.

“I’m going to drive hard now,” he explained patiently, stepping
heavily on the gas as he did so. “I want to cover as much distance as we
can before we’re forced to stop. We’ll likely have to pull over before
long, but if we get hit I don’t want to be stuck out in the middle of
nowhere.”

“You’re scaring me now, Daddy. I’m gonna call Mom,” Alice replied. He
knew she was scared when she referred to him as ‘Daddy’, like she had
as a young girl.

“I think that’s an excellent idea, honey,” David told her.

Normally David hated his daughter’s cell phone. Her mother complained
she was addicted to it, and he was aware of how much she used it. While
she didn’t use it much while she spent weekends with him, she’d always
talk on it on the way back to the city, calling her mother, her friends
and schoolmates. It always drove David crazy listening to her prattle on
while he watched their little remaining time drain away.

“Hello, Mom? Yeah, it’s me, Alice. Mom, Dad and I are caught in the
middle of a meteor storm and…” Here she paused for a bit as she listened
to what her mother was saying.

“No, really, there are meteors all over the place. The sky is filled with them.”

“Really, I’m not teasing. They’re— Mom? Are you there, Mom?” Alice asked as she lost contact with her mother.

“I lost her. Damn phone,” she said as she fell into repeating David’s
oft used phrase accidentally. She tried dialing the line again.

David was concentrating on the road now, not having the luxury of
listening to his daughter’s conversation. The other cars on the road
were either driving slowly as the occupants glanced out the windows at
the show unfolding around them, or they were stopped, either by the side
of the road or in the middle of the road, so David found himself
weaving in and out of traffic as he tried to get as far as he could
before he finally had to stop.

“I’m not getting anything,” she said after a few minutes. “The phone
says there are no bars out here. I’ve never had that happen before.
Usually I get good reception until we get closer to the house.”

“That’s because the satellite the phone uses is probably down,” David
told her without glancing back. “If it’s this bad here, it’s even worse
in outer space. Most of what we see are the larger pieces, since the
smaller rocks are burned up in the upper atmosphere. That’s why the sky
is so red. However, all those small rocks must be all over beyond our
atmosphere.”

“Wait, why would that damage the phone? I thought they used towers?”

“They do, but because of the volume of traffic, and the distances
involved, the majority of calls and data are relayed via satellite. So
when the satellite does down, most nonlocal calls will be affected,” he
explained.

“Oh. Well then, what about the Russian Astronauts? If the satellites
were damaged, then what about them?” Alice asked. As part of her school
she’d been involved in following the latest joint mission between Japan
and Russia as they’d just sent a short mission to the International
Space Station a few days before.

“The Russians call them Cosmonauts,” her father replied, falling back into his teacher mode.

“Fine, what the hell is happening to the Cosmonauts?” Alice replied a bit testily.

“Chances are they’re fine,” David said, not at all sure even as he said it.

“How can they survive when the sky is on fire?” she asked, not at all unreasonably.

“Remember, space is a big place, sweetie. They could very well be on
the other side of the planet right now. Meteor showers don’t usually
last very long, so chances are it’ll be clear when they swing around
again. Plus it might only be hitting us at this particular latitude.”

“But if they’re not…” she said, not wanting to finish the thought.

David sighed. “If they’re in the middle of the storm, then they’re
history,” he answered shortly. He really didn’t know of any better way
of telling her they wouldn’t survive such an encounter. She was silent
after that.

The traffic was a bit easier now, as most of the cars were either
ignoring the light show, or were pulled all the way over. Still, David
was paying close attention to everything around him beside the sky.

“I still can’t reach her,” Alice told him. “Apparently the phone is
out. Mom’s going to be worried that the phone call ended like that.”

“Undoubtedly,” David answered, knowing how his ex always liked to panic over things that usually had very simple explanations.

Just then he saw a little dust up as something struck a little
distance away, but he also noticed when something almost too small to
see streaked across the front of his SUV. He knew it was only getting
more dangerous to be driving, and it wasn’t looking like a brief storm
either. This was looking like it was going to last for some time.

“Alice, listen carefully. OK?”

She stuck her head between the seats to listen, but David didn’t correct her. He figured she was safe enough where she was.

“If anything happens to me, don’t get up. Don’t try to help me.
Chances are I’ll be beyond help if I’m hit by something. Instead, just
stay down there where you are and don’t get up or go outside.
Understand?”

“Daddy, you’re making me really scared,” she replied.

“Well, Daddy is pretty scared himself,” he told her.

There were strikes hitting the ground around him more and more
frequently now. Although he hadn’t been in the military, he’d read
enough and spoken to enough friends who had to know that when you’re in a
firefight, that you stay down and run like hell until you find some
shelter. They might not be in a war zone, but with projectiles flying by
at hundreds of miles an hour it was just as dangerous. What’s more, the
cheap plastic they used to make cars out of nowadays wouldn’t be likely
to provide much protection.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many places you can hide from meteors.
But that wasn’t what was worrying him, it was all the little rocks and
particles thrown up by the crashing meteors that did. A building might
not protect against a direct hit by a meteor, but a concrete or possibly
even a heavily built wood structure might provide protection. However this section of highway didn’t have a lot of exits along it.

The radio was still playing, but so far there was no mention of any
problems being broadcast, and David wasn’t about to start searching for
any news on the subject. Apparently the storm was localized, which was good news as they might be able to drive out of it.

The ground shook unexpectedly, so David knew there was a nearby
strike of some size, but it clearly wasn’t a huge strike. Chances are,
unless it was a long ways off, it was only something the size of a
basketball traveling at a high rate of speed.

As they came around a corner they saw a good sized crater before them
with a car stopped in front of it. David knew they couldn’t drive over
it, at least not at the speed they were currently driving, and he knew
that meant they’d have to finally stop.

“Alice, listen carefully.”

“Yes, Dad?” she asked nervously.

“I’ve got to stop,” he replied as he was applying the brakes. “When I
do, I want you to get out quickly and run as fast as you can to the
right. There’s an open field over there. Keep running until you’re away
from the elevated road. Find the lowest spot you can find in a level
field and lay down flat. Don’t look up or look back for me. It looks
like the woman ahead of us might be in trouble. If I call, don’t look
up. Just call out and I’ll find you. OK?”

“Yeah, Daddy,” she said, even more scared than she’d been before. But
she trusted her father. Whenever they’d gotten into trouble before he
always knew what to do, and he always kept his head in an emergency,
unlike her mother. So she knew enough to listen to everything he told
her. If he said she’d be OK, she likely would be as long as she did
exactly what he said.

As David rapidly pulled to a stop beside the stopped car ahead of him
overlooking the large crater field, he could see a woman in the car
beside them. The car looked intact, but it didn’t seem to be moving.
Luckily the woman was intelligent enough to stay inside her car, but she
wasn’t bright enough to stay down.

‘Damn,’ he thought to himself, ‘now I’ve got to risk myself trying to
rescue someone not bright enough to save themselves.’ He didn’t really
mind helping someone, but he really didn’t want to risk leaving Alice
alone if something happened to him. Especially if it was to rescue
someone who’d only put themselves back in danger again right afterwards.

“All right, honey, run for it. NOW!” David shouted as he also threw
his door open and jumped out of the car in the opposite direction that
his daughter did.

Alice took off. She took his advice, keeping her head down and her
back crouched and she didn’t glance back, simply focusing on the open
field lying off the side of the road. She wasn’t really sure why this
section of the road wasn’t fenced off like the rest of the highway was,
but she didn’t stop to ask. They’d traveled this section of road many
times before, but she had never noticed this minor anomaly before.

Despite its having been maintained and cut frequently, the going was
rough as the ground was uneven. However Alice played several sports, and
she knew how to run and, more importantly, how to run fast. She also
played beach volleyball during the summer, so she also knew how to run
on uneven ground without injuring herself.

She reached the side of the embankment where the road dropped off
abruptly and she kept running, though she had to slow down. She felt
something blow past her, only feeling the wind from whatever had just
barely missed her, but it reminded her just how serious this was. This
wasn’t simply a stroll in a park. This was the closest she’d ever come
to a life or death situation.

She couldn’t hear her father, nor did she hear any other running
feet, but her own labored breathing could easily have masked any others.
She leaped over a dividing stream at the bottom of the roadway
embankment, only she didn’t make it all the way over and she had to
scramble up the far side, getting wet in the process. But she remembered
her father’s words, and considered what might happen if she dawdled, so
she continued on as fast as she could.

Once she gained the open field, she ran until all hint of a slope was
gone, then she glanced about for the lowest spot she could find. Her
breath was getting difficult and her side was hurting. Despite being in
shape, and knowing how to run long distances, this had been an all out
dash, and she was getting tired so she knew she’d have to stop soon. She
couldn’t afford to stop simply to catch her breath, exposing herself in
the process.

Seeing a nice low depression she angled over and threw herself into
it. As soon as she hit she pressed herself flat against the ground and
just sucked air for several moments. It was only once she partially
regained her breathing that she remembered her father. She started to
look up, but remembered his admonition not to. But she did shift around
until she was facing the road again. She couldn’t see much, but she
could see the cars sitting near the road’s embankment. She didn’t see
any motion, and the thought occurred to her that if anything had
happened to her father, she likely wouldn’t know it until this was all
over and she went to find him. That idea didn’t make her feel any more
secure.

Feeling frustrated, and with nothing else she could do, she rolled
over and stared up at the sky, still lit up by the colorful smoky trails
of falling meteors. She thought it odd. She hadn’t noticed before, but
now the sky was clear. Well, aside from all the fireworks. It had been
overcast the entire afternoon, but there wasn’t a single cloud in the
sky to obstruct what was happening in the upper atmosphere. She didn’t
know if it was an effect of the meteor shower, but it was now a clear
and beautiful day. The kind of day her mother had always said you could
see forever.

David moved away from his car as quickly as he could. He wanted to be
away from a source of hard metal, glass and fiberglass pieces that an
unexpected impact might produce. He ran around the front of the car and
headed to the car the other driver was still sitting in. She saw him
coming, and actually started to roll the window down as if David was
paying her a social call at the street corner. However, when he reached
her he yanked the door open.

“You can’t stay here,” he told the woman, a slightly older blonde.
“The car, the road and the surrounding wires and trees all make an
excellent source of ricocheting missiles. If you stay here you’re likely
to be badly hurt.”

She looked up at him for a moment, but seemed to come to a quick
decision to trust him. She reached up to grab her keys when David
stopped her.

“What’s wrong with the car?” he asked her.

“It just stopped. I think it got hit with something when the road ahead of me blew up,” she explained.

“Probably cast off debris. You’re lucky it only hit the engine,”
David said as he observed the various holes poked in the body of her
car, each tiny, but each clearly evidence of small fragments tearing
straight through the car body. “OK, leave the car on, but turn the radio
up loud,” he told her, noticing the radio was tuned to a news station.
“We need to be able to hear it from out in the field.”

She didn’t argue, simply doing what he said, but she asked, “The field? Wouldn’t it be safer inside the car?”

“No, too many sources of projectiles. Even hiding under the car
wouldn’t prevent you from being torn up by small dirt fragments.”

She got out, helped by his yanking her out of the car, and he grabbed
her hand and pulled her behind him as he headed off the road in the
direction he’d sent Alice. She tried to keep up, and noticed how he ran
hunched over, so she imitated him. She was about to protest how he was
treating her, when something flew by her head with enough force to whip
her hair across her face. With that as inspiration, she actually started
to catch up to David, making it easier for her to follow him.

He pulled her along to the edge of the road. When she stumbled
heading down the embankment, David stopped, scooped her up in his arms,
tossed her over his shoulders, and took off carrying her in a fireman’s
carry. He knew it would slow them both down, but he couldn’t trust she’d
be able to keep up on her own. He had no idea what kind of shoes she
had on, or whether she could handle running on the uneven ground, so he
simply assumed it would be safer for them both for him to carry her.
David didn’t like depending on chance when he could just as easily take
control, ensuring that things worked out correctly the first time.

As she bounced as he ran down the embankment, David called out for
his daughter, looking around anxiously for her. He knew he couldn’t
stand and wait for her to respond, so if he couldn’t find her quickly
he’d have to abandon her. Once he picked a safe place to lie low he
didn’t plan on moving, since that would increase their chances of
injury. It would be better if they were together, especially since he
was sure this would be a traumatic event for everyone involved, but
David wasn’t willing to risk getting someone killed just to hold their
hands.

Alice answered immediately, however she did as he’d insisted and
didn’t sit up to signal where she was. Thus he was faced with trying to
locate her, even as he was trying to jump over the small drainage ditch
while carrying the other driver on his shoulders. Of course he wasn’t
very successful, stumbling into the small pool of water at the bottom
and scrambling up the far side, getting both of them wet. However, it
was a warm day, so that wouldn’t be a big problem, but it make the trip
more difficult, and what’s more it took more time, making the trip up
the other side even more difficult for David.

As he crested the small ditch, he looked around for his daughter
again, calling out once more. She answered him immediately, and he
zeroed in on the sound. He still wasn’t sure where she was, but he was
at least closing in on her.

There were still more small explosions as small meteors slammed into
the earth around them, but David couldn’t afford to pay any attention to
them. If he were to stop to consider what he couldn’t control, he’d be
too afraid to move. So instead he ran on, only paying enough attention
to where he was running to avoid tripping over anything in his path. The
woman over his shoulders, though, had nothing to do but watch what was
happening around her. What’s more, she was now aware of why David had
had them crouching, and she realized she was forcing David to run at his
full height, which make her that much more vulnerable to anything flying through the air, since she was still near the level of the road.

David was panting now. He worked out frequently doing work on his
property, but he wasn’t used to what he was doing now. While he often
carried heavy loads, he didn’t often do it at a full run, nor while
running over uneven ground. He was ignoring the threats of strikes from
above. If a meteor were to strike, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do
about it, as he’d likely be dead before he even realized there was a
threat.

He was about to drop to the ground where he was when he finally saw
Alice. She was waving an arm. He would have yelled at her to stop, but
he was having too much trouble getting enough breath as it was, and he
wasn’t about to stop to get his wind back. Instead he changed direction
and ran to her, trying to put on a last desperate burst of speed. As he
came up on his daughter’s supine form he simply fell forward, too weary
to lift the woman off of his shoulders. He braced himself as he fell so
he wouldn’t injure his companion, but he knew she’d be landing hard and
he also knew she wouldn’t appreciate it, but there wasn’t much else he
could do. He was exhausted!

And the landing was as hard as he’d imagined. The woman felt him
falling and imagined the worst, thinking that he’d been struck. She’d
assumed he’d warn her, at the very least, when they reached their
destination, so when she didn’t receive one she feared the most obvious
outcome. So she wasn’t caught completely by surprise. But she landed
with a hard thump, and she knew she’d feel it in her ass for some time,
but right now she was concerned with surviving the encounter, so she
wasn’t overly concerned with a bruised ass.

When she saw her father fall face first into the grass with the
strange woman lying across his shoulders, Alice quickly crawled towards
them. She was still mindful of his warning, so she didn’t get up and
kept both her head and body low to the ground. When she reached them,
the woman was moaning quietly and her father was gasping, unable to
regain his breath. Alice scrambled up and shoved the stranger off her
father so he could breathe, and started to check him to see if he’d been
injured.

“He may have been hit,” the woman said, forgetting her own bruises over her fear for her benefactor. “He went down pretty fast.”

“My father doesn’t fool around,” Alice told her. “Chances are he was
simply taking the path of least resistance. I don’t suppose he was
overly concerned with social niceties at the time. But I’m checking him
nevertheless.”

David tried to respond, but was still having too much trouble trying
to get his breath back. Alice shoved him, rolling him over onto his
back, which actually helped. As he lay there, trying to signal her with
his hands, she quickly ran her hands over his body, looking for any sign
of an injury. She’d seen how he’d responded to workplace injuries in
the past, so she had a good idea of what to look for. She’d been injured
often enough working with him or playing on their isolated land, often
falling from a tree or two.

When she didn’t find anything she shifted over so she could see his
face. He was glancing at her, still gasping for breath, but he had a
calm relaxed expression. He didn’t look panicky, so she assumed he
wasn’t hurt. She had noticed several cuts to his clothing, and
if they’d been made by ricocheting debris like she suspected, she
assumed he’d also have some minor cuts as a result. But she assumed they
weren’t too severe, otherwise she’d have found blood.

“How… how’s…” David struggled to ask.

Alice looked at the stranger her father had rescued, and she recognized the look.

“The name is Ellen Parker,” the woman answered. “Thanks for rescuing
me. There’s no telling what might have happened if I’d stayed there. I’d
thought the car was the safest place to stay, but it was being riddled
with holes while I was there.”

“Dad says it’s the ricocheting rocks that are the biggest problem,”
Alice explained. “He says the danger from the meteors really isn’t that
bad, although if we were to be hit by one, chances are we’d never know
it anyway.”

“Well, that’s a load off of my mind,” Ellen sighed in teasing exasperation. “How does your father look?”

“He seems to be fine, although I’m sure he overexerted himself in
trying to rescue you,” Alice responded. “His name is David. I’m Alice,
by the way. We were traveling to my father’s house in the foothills of
West Virginia.”

“I was heading to my sister’s cottage for the weekend,” Ellen told
her as they both watched David slowly get his breathing under control.
He was still breathing hard, but it didn’t sound quite so drastic
anymore. Ellen felt terrible that she’d forced the one person who’d
thought to help her into putting himself in such peril. She wished she
could do something for him, but she had no idea of what to do.

Seeing her father was partially recovered, Alice decided she needed to press him concerning what to do.

“What now, Dad? Do we just lay here and wait?”

David struggled to speak for a moment before responding. “Just lay…
low. Nothing we can… do till… the storm… passes,” he got out.

Ellen was thinking they were safe way out here in the middle of a
field, but she was disabused of that idea when something flew over their
heads, causing her to glance up and see the continuing fall of
additional meteors.

“Can you make any phone calls?” Ellen asked.

“No, my cell phone died in the middle of the storm,” she said,
following her father’s lead in describing the severe activity around
them as if it were a weather phenomenon. “Dad said it was likely the
communication satellites in outer space were hit and destroyed.”

“Yeah, mine went out as well. When that one meteor hit in front of me
and my car stopped, man did it make a loud racket. I tried calling for
help but I couldn’t get a signal. Your father must be right about the
danger of thrown debris, because after the meteor hit there was this
horrific crash that sounded like a huge cat scratching its nails down a
large blackboard. I knew the car was totaled as soon as I heard that
sound.”

Both Ellen and Alice were talking in an almost normal everyday
manner, ignoring David as he recovered beside them. But there really
wasn’t much else they could do. It looked like they were going to be
here for some time, and you can only be hysterical for so long.

In the background they could hear Ellen’s radio playing in the
distance. It was soft, but if they stopped they could make out what it
was saying. So far they were playing music and prerecorded news
programs. They wondered why no one had reported on this yet. You’d think
with as much of the sky being filled with meteor trails that someone would have noticed it by now.

“Did you have anything you needed out of your car?” David asked
Ellen, even though he had no intention of getting it for her. He was
only asking as a way of joining in the conversation, thinking talking
about mundane things would give them more of a sense of normalcy in such
a strange environment.

“Nothing that I’d risk our lives trying to save. I’m just glad we managed to get out of there in one piece.”

“Dad, I noticed several cuts in your jacket and pants, were you injured?” his daughter asked.

“Gee, I didn’t think so. If I was, I wasn’t aware of it. But then, I
was pretty focused on getting away from there. After all, you know how
single minded I can be at times.”

“Yeah, do I?” Alice answered before noticing that Ellen was
watching them. She and her father finally took in this woman they’d just
met. She was blond with fairly light skin and freckles. She was cute,
but she wasn’t drop dead gorgeous, so she seemed more approachable. Now
that they were past the crisis, each was interested in learning what the
others were like, and since they couldn’t do much else while lying flat
against the grass hoping not to be hit by a flying rock, they settled
into talking about themselves.

“I only visit my father every other weekend,” Alice told Ellen, “but
when I stay with him he lets me work on the house he’s built in the side
of a mountain. When we finish, he also lets me play in the woods. You
know, the typical guy things like scaling the side of the mountain or
climbing trees, or even occasionally skinny dipping.”

“Hey, as far as your mother and any new people who might disapprove
are concerned, I never take you skinny dipping,” David corrected her.

“Yeah, but you never stop me. You know I like that pond, and you were
the one who first put the idea in my head when you told me those
stories of you and Mom.”

Ellen didn’t think of the comment about their having built a house
against a mountain, figuring it was just a small structure, but she
could understand Alice’s fascination with it.

“Hey, climbing trees and exploring the woods is something
that girls do. I used to love doing those things myself, but now that
I’m working I never get a chance to get away any more. Every now and
then I’ll hike short segments of the Appalachian Trail, but that’s been
about all I’ve been able to manage lately.”

“You’re a hiker?” David asked, trying to encourage the girls to talk about pedestrian things.

“Yeah. Years ago I hiked a fair portion of the Trail. I started in
Georgia but I only got as far as Virginia. I always meant to go back,
but then I got busy trying to build a career. It’s hard to hike much
when you have a day job.”

“Dad took me along a short segment near where he lives,” Alice said,
adding her own two cents worth. “It was nice, but the woods around his
house are so nice it’s sort of like travelling from one garden paradise
to visit another one. I mean, I loved it, but I’m perfectly happy at his
place.”

“Hmm, I may have to visit this fabulous house in the woods you keep describing. I could use some place to get away to.”

“Oh, you’d love it,” Alice assured her. “Dad built this great house.
It’s set partway into the mountain, so you walk into this little
building then walk up some stairs and then there’s this big glass wall
overlooking the valley. It’s got a phenomenal view.”

“And you built this place yourself?” Ellen asked David, revising her opinion of his resources.

“Yeah,” Alice answered for her father. “He designed it, he built the
road leading to it, he cleared the land, and he blasted the side of the
mountain and excavated the stone. He’s amazing.”

“So it was just the two of you?” Ellen asked, trying to find a subtle
way of asking an obvious question. “No wife or girlfriend to help you?”

“Oh, no,” Alice answered with a grin. “Mom hates it there.
She calls it his ‘monstrosity in the middle of nowhere’. She won’t set
foot there. She won’t even come up to get me when I stay there. Once I
got hurt and Dad had to clear up a small rock slide, and she refused to
come for me, telling Dad to call me a cab. As if cabs would ever drive up there,” she finished dismissively.

“So your mother wasn’t fond of it, huh?” Ellen asked, trying to get
Alice to continue to talk, hopefully revealing more about their
relationship.

“Oh, no, she’s never been back since. And no one else has either,”
Alice said, confirming what Ellen has been waiting to hear. “The only
ones who have ever been able to appreciate the place are Dad and I.”

“Oh, really?” Ellen cooed, glancing at David with a sparkle in her eye. “So what happened to your parents after that?”

Even though Ellen didn’t know either of these two, she still
considered David handsome, and he certainly sounded like he was a
capable and hard worker, two things she admired. Plus having just been
rescued by a handsome tall stranger, she had a bit of a crush at the
moment. She wanted to believe in magic at the moment, and he seemed like
an ideal handsome Prince, even if his previous wife didn’t think so.

“No, she stormed out over my ‘obsession’ years ago,” David told her,
speaking up for himself finally. It wasn’t that he was particularly shy,
but Alice was quite talkative even in normal times, and now she seemed
pretty hyper. But more than that, David was out of practice talking to
attractive women. He hadn’t dated since Linda had left him, instead
submerging himself in his hobbies and in raising his daughter.

Alice, on the other hand, was conscious of how Ellen was trying to
subtly flirt with her father, and she was also well aware of how
uncomfortable he was with striking up a conversation with a new woman.

After her parents had split up, Alice had, like most kids, wished
they’d get back together. But it soon became apparent that it was never
going to happen. Linda had taken up with one man after another, looking
for something she never quite managed to find. But she always told Alice
everything she had found lacking in her father. Alice had repeatedly
asked her not to talk badly about him to her, but Linda was hard to
dissuade. Alice had given up on the idea of getting her parents back
together, but she had instead switched her machinations into trying to
get her father to date. If her mother could date anyone and everyone,
then certainly her father deserved someone to keep him company for all
the time he spent alone. Besides, she reasoned, it was dangerous living
alone. If something happened to him he could die up there by himself,
and no one would ever know until he didn’t show up two weeks later to
pick her up.

No, Alice had no problems in encouraging her father to flirt with
Ellen. She was attractive, she had a nice smile, and her eyes danced
with a mischievous twinkle, and she seemed to share several interests
with him as well. Her problem was with her father. He’d never even tried
to date after his marriage had fallen apart.

Alice had encouraged him to date. She’d continually talk up anyone
they met, even going so far as to invite attractive strangers they met
to dinner while she was visiting, but David had never gone for it. He
was sociable, she had to concede that he knew how to deal with people,
but he was uncomfortable with it. He preferred his solitude, and Alice
was afraid he was getting too comfortable with living on his own. If he
didn’t find someone soon, he might never be willing to disturb his life
by letting someone else into it.

Just then the distant sound of the radio caught their attention, and David quieted them so they could listen to it.

“This just in, there seems to be a massive meteor shower sweeping
across the country. It supposedly started West of here,” the announcer
told them, signaling he must have been centered in Washington, “and it’s
been sweeping steadily westward. It’s been inflicting serious damage,
and it has limited cell phone and landline phone services. So far we
don’t have much information about it, but all airline flights for the
entire country have been grounded. No reports if this is affecting any
countries other than the U.S., but it doesn’t seem to be a localized
phenomenon.”

“Well, at least someone has noticed us,” David observed.

“Yeah, but if it’s sweeping westward, and it’s affecting a large
area, that means no one is likely to come looking for us,” Ellen
commented.

“No, I think we’re on our own,” David agreed. “And we don’t dare move
until it stops. This can’t last for that long. It’s already been going
on for a long time. It’s got to stop before too long. Once it does,
it’ll take another several hours before anyone makes it this way looking
for anyone.”

“I can’t stay out here by myself until someone comes to help me,”
Ellen replied, starting to sound panicky for the first time. Alice
didn’t say anything, glancing at her father, trying to propel him to do
the right thing for a change.

“Don’t worry. Assuming my car still works when this is over, I’ll
either give you a lift home or I’ll at least take you to see my
‘monstrosity’. Either way, you won’t be stuck here.”

“Oh, thank you, David,” she enthused, as she leaned over and gave him
a quick kiss thank you. However the kiss continued beyond that, and
they found themselves still kissing even after several long moments had
passed. Ellen opened her eyes, which she’d closed momentarily when David
had first met her lips, and she observed Alice watching them. Alice was
trying to studiously avoid staring at them, but she had a big shit
eating grin on her face, so Ellen felt safe with what had happened so
far. ‘Just don’t say anything to your mother,’ she thought. ‘Chances are
she won’t react well to your father making out with a strange woman if
she’s as much of a bitch as she sounds like’.

However David wasn’t quite so cavalier with what had happened. When
he noticed Alice watching them he blushed heavily and started to make
apologies. But Ellen saw what he was going through, and started asking
him if it would be any problem with her staying with them, and whether
they had enough supplies for her. However the entire time she was asking
them this, she was holding David’s hand, the one that was hidden from
Alice. David seemed to be fine with that, though, as their fingers
intertwined.

“So what do you do?” David asked, trying to keep the discussion
moving, since he wanted to avoid the uncomfortable situation, but also
because he saw it as the best therapy for each of them at the moment.

“Oh, I work as a writer. I do business writing, mostly for small
businesses where I write their ad copy and review their website content,
making it more accessible,” Ellen explained. “How about you, what do
you do?”

Alice held her breath and bit her lip at this point. This seemed to
her father’s weak point. He was comfortable with what he did, but he
knew Linda had left him over his not working at a 9 to 5 job, and if he
expressed discomfort over it, or if Ellen was anything like Alice’s
mother, then the slowly evolving relationship might falter.

“Oh, I don’t work. I retired with a fairly hefty retirement fund and
some income from some patents. However I’ve spent much of that building
my little retreat. I won’t need to work anytime soon, but I don’t live
high on the hog, either,” David answered.

Ellen considered that. “I guess that explains why your ex-wife didn’t
like you spending all your money on your little house project. Actually
that casts you both in a better light. She simply had a different world
view than you did, and when you went after your dream you both found
you could no longer live together. Thus, the way I see it, neither of
you was really to blame for the breakup.”

“Why thank you,” David replied. “I was a little afraid you’d take her
position. If that was the case we’d have had a very difficult time
spending the rest of the meteor shower sharing this little hollow.”

“So she really left you because you didn’t have a job?” Ellen asked.

“Yeah,” Alice replied. “It was a mess. She said that Dad had no
ambition. That’s concerning a man who hand-built a huge house in the
country that’s almost totally self supporting.”

“She was a bit obsessed. She liked what my career bought her. Not so
much the toys, although that was a part of it, but she also liked the
social scene. And since I dropped out to spend time on my own she felt
like I’d abandoned her just as she was starting to get ahead socially.”

“I can see that. It’s sad, but it’s also perfectly understandable,”
Ellen said. “It’s just a matter of your interests growing apart. But the
really sad part is that she tried to poison Alice against you. That, I don’t think is justifiable.”

“What about you? Do you think you might be able to stand going out
with someone who has no ambition?” David asked, basically fishing for
complements, or at least an opening.

“Well, I’m not going to commit myself after only a few moments lying
together in a field,” Ellen teased him. “Maybe after we fall asleep
together in a little while, but I’m willing to see how things develop
over time.”

“That’s all I can ask,” David said, meaning it sincerely.

They continued to talk for quite a while, slowly getting to know one
another. They’d occasionally stop and listen to the news, but it didn’t
provide much new information. The news media seemed to be slow in
getting and processing the story, which was understandable if the
communications were down and air travel was grounded. Alice grew bored
and took out her cell phone, listening to tunes. She tried playing some
games, but had to stop to preserve the battery, thinking she may need it
later if they got somewhere she could use it.

As they were lying there, Alice suddenly leaned up and pointed to the
road. “Look,” she said loudly, “there’s someone down there.”

David and Ellen both turned and looked, and indeed, there was a car
that had traveled near. It was still a distance off, not near their
cars, but they could still see it clearly, even though they hadn’t
noticed it before. However, it seems to have stopped much like Ellen’s
car had. They couldn’t see why it had from this distance, but they could
see the movement of the passengers inside, and they could tell they
were somewhat frantic.

The door of the SUV opened, and the man got out of the driver’s seat
with some difficulty. What appeared to be his wife/girlfriend/companion
got out of the other side and hurriedly ran around to him. The man knelt
down and held his side, and even from this distance the three lying
there in the field could see the dark patch that indicated blood.
Apparently they hadn’t stopped because of a mechanical problem, but
because the man had been injured, most likely from the frequently flying
shrapnel.

The wife/girlfriend helped him to his feet, and they appeared to
talk, seemingly trying to decide what to do. However they were doing it
like they were home in their own safe little house. They didn’t seem to
have learned how dangerous it was to be standing outside in a heavy
meteor shower like this.

“David, we have to warn them,” Ellen said, turning and putting her
hand on his. “They don’t know how much danger they are in standing out
in the open like that.”

“Yeah, Daddy, they’re in a lot of trouble. We need to go down and bring them up here.”

David gritted his teeth. He felt like a heel, but he had to be
strong. Not only for himself, he wasn’t afraid to risk his own safety
for someone else, but he needed to watch out over the two girls as well.

“They’re too far away,” David quietly advised them. “If we stood up
and waved and shouted, we’d put ourselves in danger as well, and they’d
never hear us. They’re across the field and on the far side of the
highway, not to mention they’re a ways down the road, plus your radio is
still blaring. They couldn’t hear any warning, and they’d only see us
if they wandered over to our side of the highway and looked right at
us.”

“But couldn’t we—” Alice started to argue.

“NO,” he told her in a steely tone that hid his own anguish over his
decision, “you’re not about to try running to warn them. It’s much too
dangerous, and it’s too far a distance to expose your—” he was saying,
when his short rant was interrupted. They’d remained watching the couple
as they’d discussed contacting them, but suddenly the man had keeled
over and crumpled, leaving a bloodstained girlfriend standing there
looking bewildered. David guessed the man had taken a second piece of
shrapnel to his head, which caused it to blow apart. Not a difficult
thing to do considering the force of some of the things they’d seen
flying. It’s easy to imagine a small rock traveling at the speed of a
gunshot connecting with someone’s skull. It’d be like a race car
traveling extremely fast meeting a solid stationary telephone pole,
something David and Alice had watched on the internet once. The car, a
specially designed vehicle with a jet engine racing through the salt
flats at a phenomenal speed, was largely undamaged, but the force of the
car’s speed caused the telephone pole to literally disintegrate, blown
into a thousand small pieces. Of course, it was probably a specially
designed vehicle, as a typical car wouldn’t likely respond like that,
but the concept of the damage a fast moving item can do still stood.

Both Ellen and Alice grasped David’s arm and held on tight as they
each watched the scene continue to unfold before them. The woman looked
around, and then dropped to her knees. She seemed to not know what to do
and tried to lift him up, ending up simply cradling his head against
her chest. They assumed she was crying because she remained like that,
still exposed on the open road, for quite a while.

Finally she seemed to awaken from her shocked state. David could only
guess she’d had a near encounter with yet another piece of shrapnel.
She got to her feet, leaving the dead form of her companion lying there,
and stood and looked back and forth, apparently trying to decide what
to do. She started to the car, but then hesitated. It seemed obvious to
the watchers that her car had been damaged when her husband/boyfriend
had been injured. She glanced at David and Ellen’s cars, but seemed to
decide against trying to reach them, then striding off in the other
direction, walking away from the trio watching from the field she’d
never even glanced at.

They each watched her walking away, expecting to see her crumple at
any moment, but she continued to march, fully erect the entire way,
until she disappeared from sight. Something made easier by the fact
she’d been so far away to begin with. She’d hesitated a moment when her
knee seemed to give out from under her, but she kept walking in quiet
determination. However, she hadn’t seemed to have learned anything, as
she continued walking along the open road, standing upright the entire
way.

The three watchers simply looked at each other after she disappeared,
as each tried to figure out what they thought of the encounter.

“Shit, I knew it was dangerous out there, but now I’m definitely
going to keep my head down,” Alice said. “I think I’ll have less
problems peeing on myself after watching that.”

David resisted the impulse to chastise his daughter for her language.
Watching someone die in front of you is fairly traumatic event, and a
little adult language seemed strangely called for.

“Still, they travelled all this way without injury,” Ellen commented,
not sure what her point was. Despite her objection, she didn’t think
she’d risk standing up any time either. Seeing that man dying in front
of them was certainly dramatic. She pulled David closer to her as she
felt herself shiver momentarily in fear. David was strong and he seemed
to always know what to do, surely he’d protect her.

Alice felt similarly. She pressed up against her father, seeking some
comfort and solace. She could see that her father and Ellen seemed to
be drawing closer as a result of having experienced this, which she
wanted to encourage, but she needed just a little of his time before she
could leave them on their own. Thus the three lay there holding each
other, both girls gravitating to David, seeking comfort from him, while
he was primarily worried for them, realizing the chance of their being
rescued was fairly remote at the moment.

None of them talked about it much beyond that. The image remained
with each of them, but they needed time to process what they’d seen.
They were each aware that the same thing was happening across the
country, and the only reason they’d only seen the single death was that
they were so isolated. If they’d been closer to the city they’d have
likely seen many deaths, each just as gruesome.

After a while of comforting each other they finally felt ready to
continue on. They shifted around, all without standing up, so now Ellen
was lying in David’s arms while Alice lay facing them, mostly on her
back. Her father and Ellen had been getting along famously, and the fact
they were now cuddling each other boded well for their potential future
relationship. They were still talking when yet another news cast from
the radio caught their attention. The announcers had been acknowledging
the storm, but they hadn’t had much definitive information about it
until now.

“This just in, the meteor storm has now reached the Midwest where
it’s been setting off a series of wildfires. The dry timber this time of
year is highly susceptible to the overheated meteors which have been
showering down amongst them. There are reports of widespread physical
damage, and there are also reports that several governors have declared
states of emergency, but since the normal communication networks are
down we’ve been unable to verify any of them. The various police
agencies have been warning people to remain safe and to be patient,
since their officers are afraid to venture out in the current conditions
to offer assistance. Meanwhile, the reports are the storm is continuing
west at a rapid rate, and should be on the West Coast in only a short
time. We’re advising everyone to remain indoors, under the cover of a basement or braced against an interior doorframe.

“The scientific community, at least those we’ve been able to
communicate with, have been unable to provide any answers concerning
this event. There were no apparent warnings, and the only notice anyone
had was after they were already crashing to the ground causing extensive
damage. Some have suggested it was simply ‘floating space junk’, but no
one seems to know where it might have come from, or why it would appear
now. Unfortunately, most scientific observatories are now closed up
tight in an effort to protect their sensitive equipment from damage, so
further information is unlikely.”

“Whew, there’s no end to the bad news,” Ellen observed.

“I’m just upset there’s no indication of how long this will go on,”
David said. “I figured it would only last for a little while, but we’ve
already been lying here for several hours. But I’ll tell you what; as
soon as it clears I think we should make a break for it. If nothing
else, as the day progresses the Earth should turn away from the meteors,
so we should get a break eventually. But since we don’t know where this
is coming from, there’s no telling how long that will take.”

“Well, as comfortable as I am at the moment, we’re going to have to
figure out what to do about a bathroom, because I’m going to need to pee
soon,” Alice informed them.

“Well, you may be able to sit up to do it, I’m not sure I’d recommend it,” David replied. “While you may
be safe, you could also easily die from doing it. If you have to poop,”
he said, trying to use a ‘safe’ word for ‘taking a dump’, “then there’s
no avoiding it, but if you just need to pee, then I’d suggest you crawl
over to the side and pee as best you can without standing up.”

“Maybe if we try doing it upside down?” Ellen suggested. “Try
kneeling on your hands and feet. That way you won’t have to stand up
very high.”

“I’ll try, but it doesn’t sound easy. I think I’m going to give it a
try, if I don’t make it back, please don’t put what I was doing on my
headstone,” Alice teased.

The other two watched as Alice crawled off, not out of any prurient
interests, but simply because they wanted to observe what would work and
what wouldn’t so they’d have an easier time of it when they tried it
themselves.

Alice took Ellen’s suggestion, though out of modesty she turned
around so she was facing them. David and Ellen could see her sigh
gratefully when she was successful, but they also saw her duck when
something flew by her. There was still a lot of meteor activity, even
this far away from anything, and the closer collisions threw up a lot of
dangerous projectiles.

“Maybe we should just try lying on our stomachs and peeing on the
ground, simply wiping ourselves when we’re done?” Ellen suggested.

“Except we don’t have a large amount of wet wipes, nor any way to throw them away,” David countered.

Alice crawled back, a bit embarrassed, but she decided the best way
to deal with the situation was to brave it out, acting as if this was
simply an everyday activity, which in a way it was. However, neither
David nor Ellen was able to control their reactions, and they sniggered
at the situation, which didn’t ease Alice’s discomfort. But she couldn’t
help herself either, and soon they were all giggling about it. Despite
her embarrassment, she was comforted that Ellen and her father shared
the same sense of humor at absurd situations, and while that didn’t bode
well for her, it did for them.

“Well, it can be done,” she told them, “but I thought I was going to
buy it for a moment there. I’m not sure I’d suggest it. Maybe we should
simply try crossing our legs more?”

“Personally I think it would be safer, especially for some of us, to
simply lie on our backs and to piss into the sky,” David teased. “That
way we could make a personal statement of our feelings about the dangers
we’re being subjected to.”

“Oh, yuck,” Alice replied. “You may be able to get away with
that, but I’m not looking forward to peeing on myself, especially if we
can’t reach a shower afterwards.”

They each commiserated about the undesirable options, but it was more
to distract themselves than anything else. As always, they’d do what
they had to do. There was no getting around that. The problem was that
there simply wasn’t anything else to occupy them.

It started getting dark, and as it did the light show above and
around them became even more spectacular. The radio in the car died a
while ago, when the car battery had finally given out. It had been
running without being recharged for a long time.

As it grew dusky, David and Ellen began to feel freer to express
their interest in each other, especially since it was heightened by the
boredom of lying unoccupied for so long. They’d been quietly interacting
all evening, holding hands, flirting, teasing each other. They felt
comfortable together, despite the weirdness of their circumstances. Now
that it was dark, they were ready to kick things up a notch. David
managed to press his erection against Ellen’s ass, and proceeded to rub
himself against her suggestively. She responded positively by
reciprocating, encouraging him to continue even as they both reacted as
if nothing was happening. Ellen even covered David’s hand attacking her
breast by holding her own hands in front of her.

They weren’t really fooling Alice, though, but she wasn’t overly
concerned. She was so excited to see her father finally getting
interested in someone new after having been on his own for so long, she
wanted to encourage it as much as she could. So she simply chose to
ignore anything they might get up to. Hopefully they’d feel encouraged
by her lack of response to try even more, thereby linking them together
that much more.

However, both Ellen and David wanted more, not being satisfied with
simply teasing each other, both being so close to being intimate, but
being frustrated by a few millimeters of clothing. Their desires were
made easier by the fact that Ellen had selected to wear a skirt and
blouse to visit her sister. That dress was soon lifted in the rear,
providing David free access from behind while still remaining seemingly
demure from the front.

David tried to subtly strip his jeans and underwear off, but it’s
hard being subtle when you have to shimmy your hips to get out of your
pants. But he soon had them down far enough. He didn’t want to remove
them all the way, even if it inhibited his movements. After all, he’d
rather it took longer to reach a resolution than to be caught with his
pants down if he suddenly found himself with a meteorite fragment in his
ass.

Since it was getting darker yet, David moved his hands up under
Ellen’s blouse, even though she had to shift a bit to give him enough
room to accomplish it, but she was rewarded when she felt his warm hand
caressing her breast. She managed to unfasten her bra while Alice was
distracted. It wasn’t terribly comfortable, but they had enough access
that they could continue with their intimate encounter.

David moved Ellen’s panties aside and played with her damp pussy for a
while, until he thought she might be ready. But having been lying in
his arms, and feeling he had rescued her from a dangerous situation in a
frightening environment, had heightened her arousal, so there wasn’t
much of a problem with her not being in the mood. As Alice was
making a point about something, the details of which neither Ellen nor
David were paying a lot of attention to, David pressed against Ellen,
sinking his cock into her waiting pussy.

Ellen had to bite her lip to keep from moaning at the contact, as she
felt her flesh stretch and wrap around her new lover’s organ. She’d
have liked to have seen it, or more specifically to have caressed it,
but she really needed to keep her hands in front of her to maintain
appearances. David began to slowly thrust into her, managing to grind
his pelvis against her at the end of each thrust. Ellen loved the
sensations, just as she suspected she may have been beginning to fall in
love with this gentle man and his intelligent daughter. She knew she
was infatuated, but she hoped it wasn’t blinding her at the moment. She
didn’t think so, but she knew the circumstances were conspiring against
her better judgment, so she tried to keep that in consideration.

Being involved in a life threatening situation had gotten people into
trouble for years. Feeling you’re about to die has long triggered the
desire to overcome one’s own impending demise by expressing one’s life
by engaging in sex. Whether the love was ‘real’ or not was something
that only time would reveal. She hoped it was, but she had no way of
guaranteeing that it was, and she wasn’t about to wait until then to
express the love she felt at the moment.

Alice was hardly ignorant as she observed Ellen and her father begin
to shift back and forth. They were being subtle, but some things are
just hard to hide, especially since Alice had been hoping for just this
occurrence. More than anything else, the expressions on their faces gave
them away. Ellen’s face got dreamy, with her eyes closing and a flush
rising in her cheeks, while her father looked determined, a little like
he was trying to take a dump. But then, Alice had no idea what she’d
look like in similar circumstances, so she wasn’t about to throw stones.
What she did know was that she’d been waiting a long time for this to
happen, and she wasn’t about to laugh at it or embarrass them in any
way. She wanted her father to have this, and she’d encourage it as much
as she could. So she started to talk more to cover the small sounds they
were making. That was especially useful, since neither one seemed
capable of maintaining a dialogue at the moment.

David was getting more involved the further they went. In order to
get the traction they both desired, he’d worked his other hand under her
skirt until it was grasping Ellen’s hip, helping to pull her back to
meet each of his thrusts, although she really didn’t need much help,
since she was moving with him quite well as it was. David’s other hand
was grasping Ellen’s right breast, and the warm feel of her hard nipple
against the palm of his hand providing a nice contrast to the soft skin
underneath, provided further encouragement. He augmented his other
actions by leaning forward and nibbling on Ellen’s ear. He knew that was
more visible, but he figured that much physical interaction would be
OK, as long as they could continue to keep their other actions secret.

Ellen was also feeling the need to get more involved with their
lovemaking as well. She felt it was important, not only because she
desired the physical contact, but because she was hoping to make a real
connection with the attractive David. He seemed to be a wonderful guy,
and she thought being closer to him during their first lovemaking would
help to strengthen their feelings for each other. She knew from what
Alice had told her that David hadn’t been with anyone recently, and he
clearly didn’t sleep around. That made her feel better, and also made
the idea of getting and keeping his interest in her that much more vital
to her.

She assumed it was dark enough now, especially since Alice was laying
on her back, staring up into the meteor filled sky, for her to play
with her other breast, the one that David was unable to reach with his
right hand pinned under her. Her other hand stole down to her crotch,
where she began to diddle herself through her dress. She was still
wearing her panties, but that little obstacle didn’t do much to dampen
her enthusiasm. She was afraid they might be getting a bit too vocal,
but she hoped it wouldn’t be noticed. She was also aware she was now
quite damp, and she prayed the scent of sex wouldn’t alert Alice to what
was going on. Hopefully her dress being closed in the front would limit
it, and even more hopefully Alice’s inexperience might mean she
wouldn’t be familiar with the scents associated with sex. The fact that
Alice would likely be familiar with her own scents didn’t quite enter
her consciousness at the moment.

David, likewise, was thinking about more than just sex at the moment.
He was amazed that after all this time he’d finally met someone he
could relate to. After having spent years trying to get along with a
variety of inane corporate stooges he wasn’t about to put up with fools,
as he liked to refer to it. That was why he tended to be so impatient
with people, often making pointed statements designed to upset them,
just to measure their responses. This often caused them to become
offended, and the encounter would end before it could progress any
farther. But that was usually David’s intent. If someone couldn’t think
for themselves, or couldn’t defend their thinking, then he really wasn’t
very interested in getting to know them. As a result he’d been alone
for the past several years. He knew his ex-wife had no such standards,
and he’d seen how flighty and pernicious she’d become as a result.

Ellen, however, seemed to be perfectly capable of handling her own.
Not only did they share many similarities and she got along with Alice—always
a major point with David—but when she defended Linda she actually
scored quite a few points with him. Not because she had defended his
ex-wife, per se, but because she’d stated her own opinion, even though
she had to have assumed he’d react badly to it. That showed strength of
character and an independent streak, as well as a ‘devil may care’
attitude that meant a lot to David.

As a result he’d responded well to her, actually engaging in some
inane flirting with her, which he’d surprisingly found quite pleasant.
He missed the days when he could openly flirt with someone, and she’d
responded in kind. When she offered both the suggestion they date and
accepted his offer to take her home after this was over, he’d felt
ecstatic. He knew the dangers of conflict inspired relationships, that
they typically burned hot and fast, quickly consuming themselves before
the participants really established a meaningful relationship, but he
was hoping for the best. And so far, he was quite encouraged with how
things had developed.

The fact they were even now engaged in sex, in an open field, in full
view of the open street and his own daughter, who luckily didn’t seem
to be aware of what they were doing, surprised him just as much. David
was a planner, and had never really been known as that spontaneous. He
specialized in planning, in spending months or years on a project and
carefully working towards a goal. That was one of his problems with
Linda. She’d always wanted him to continually sweep her off her feet,
but he had never been very good with the sweet romantic notions
department. It was hard for him to think spontaneously, and anything he
did had felt planned. So to find himself in a situation like this, doing
something he hadn’t even done in his high school and college years,
really surprised him.

He thought there was a good chance this might be ‘the one’, or at
least his ‘next one’. Time would tell, of course, but he hoped he and
Ellen might have a future together. But at the very least they’d have a
very intense several weeks together, he hoped, and after such a long
period without anyone besides his daughter in his life, that would be a
relief.

Despite the lust they felt for each other, and as excited as they
felt to be defying death by becoming intimate with someone else, they
managed to keep their lovemaking quiet. David’s motions sped up, but he
countered it by shortening his thrusts, minimizing their motions
somewhat. They both doubted that their actions were being completely
hidden from Alice. She’d rolled over and wasn’t watching them, but
still. But they were far enough along now they found it hard to control
their motions too much. Alice was lying with her headphones on, so they
assumed she was listening to some music, but neither of them could tell
whether it was actually turned on or not. She was shifting around a lot,
which made her father fairly suspicious, but he assured himself she was
simply rocking to whatever she was listening to.

Since Alice was no longer watching them, David grabbed Ellen’s
breasts, after he’d exposed them both to the air, and he proceeded to
thrust more quickly into her, feeling himself getting closer. Ellen had
already managed to cum before, but she felt herself closing in on a
second one, too. As David began his shorter thrusts, she felt herself
building up as well. Then David slammed home, pressing himself hard
against her, and she could feel him pumping his semen into her, and it
sent her off, just a few seconds after him. She twisted around, kissing
him for the first time during their encounter, and they held each other
as they both came down from one of the most intense orgasms of their
lives.

Alice smiled to herself in the silence that followed her father’s
first lovemaking since months before her mother left. He’d already moved
to the house site by then. While it had been hard trying to control
herself while listening to them, she’d manage to restrain herself, more
because of the paralyzing thought her father would realize she’d been
listening to him and stop, than fear of being discovered. When this was
all over she owed herself a major jilling session, but she thought she’d
think of Franklin Thomas, one of the cuter guys from school, rather
than her father when she did it. She thought the world of her father,
but the idea of masturbating to the idea of him making love was just a
bit too much for her.

After the two lovers were done, all three fell into a comfortable
silence and unwound the many worries of the day. Meteors continued to
fall at an alarming rate in a pyrotechnic display of unimaginable
beauty, but they each quickly fell asleep. Each awoke occasionally,
surprised to find themselves lying in a field before remembering all
that had occurred that day, and each looking around enough to see that
the storm was continuing just as strongly as it had hours and hours
before. They’d fall asleep after they accepted those simple facts,
realizing there was nothing else they could do about it.

David awoke again sometime later and glanced around once more. He
felt confused, something wasn’t right. Then it occurred to him. The
frequency of the meteors falling from the sky had diminished. The storm
was finally ending. Glancing at his watch, he saw they’d been in it for
almost ten hours, so surely it was only the fact the Earth had finally
turned away from the meteor onslaught. That meant they’d be OK. Surely
the meteors would end before they were exposed to it again.

“You OK, David?” Ellen asked, as she cuddled closer to him. When
they’d fallen asleep she was still being spooned by him, but somehow
they managed to gravitate to each other during the night, so now Ellen
lay against him on one side, while Alice lay against the other. Ellen
didn’t know how they’d arranged that when they were reduced to crawling,
but somehow they had.

“Yeah, I think the storm is finally passing,” David responded.

Ellen leaned up and looked around, trying to measure the difference
in the streaks falling from the sky. She was heartened, realizing they
might soon be able to get out of here, but she felt disappointed since
it would end the close time she’d been sharing with David and his
daughter. But then she remembered he’d offered to take her to his house,
which was probably better, as it meant they’d have more time to get to
know each other. She just hoped he wouldn’t insist on taking her to her
sister’s. She was worried about Gloria, but she was more interested in
David than she was in her sister at the moment.

“Well, it’s about time. How long before we should try leaving?” she asked.

“We’re leaving?” Alice asked sleepily, as she rolled over and glanced up at them.

“The storm is ending,” David explained, “but it hasn’t ended quite
yet. I’m guessing it’ll take close to another hour before we’ll be safe.
We’ll wait until everything stops, then we’ll check the cars.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Alice said, finally waking up as she considered
what was involved. “Our car has been sitting out during all of this.
There’s probably a good chance it was damaged.”

“What will we do if we can’t leave?” Ellen asked, sounding worried.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” David cautioned. “We’ll figure
out what to do if and when that problem arises. But for now we’ll just
concentrate on getting to the car. If it’s broken we’ll probably have to
walk, but there’s likely to be other cars stopped along the road as
well. We can either find one that works, or hopefully I can find a
replacement part and get one of them to work.”

“Would that involve any dead bodies in the other cars?” Alice asked nervously.

David rolled his eyes, imaging the reaction if they encountered such a
scene, hoping she didn’t see it. “As I said, we’ll cross that bridge if
and when we see it. I’ll check each of the cars before we try anything,
though.”

“Thanks, Dad. You always look out for me,” Alice said, as she gave
her father a hug in appreciation for everything he did for her. She
didn’t know what she’d do without him. As much as her mother had her
doing, she usually couldn’t be bothered to do anything herself. She had
her dates, she had her scheduled events, her shows. Her mother wasn’t
often there for her, but her father always was. The only problem was she
only got to see him every other week, which was hardly enough.

They lay there and watched the sky gradually grow quieter. They also
checked out the roadway. It was lit by the light from the sky, but
they’d have to memorize the directions because it would be much darker
when they finally ventured out. David glanced up, there was a quarter
moon so it wouldn’t be completely dark, but it would still be difficult
walking across an open field in the middle of the night.

The three tried to figure out what they’d be able to accomplish when
they could get away, assuming they could. They figured at worst they’d
have to hike to the nearest exit where they could find some form of
shelter, which would be better than lying out in an open field. If they
could get home it would practically be nirvana, but they each prepared
themselves to be disappointed.

The lightshow diminished slowly, so slowly it was hardly noticeable,
but they’d look up and comment that it had quieted substantially. When
it slowed to only a dozen or so meteors at a time, David figured it was
probably safe to try, figuring the light still cast by the few remaining
meteors would allow them to find their way.

He led the others, walking in single file, holding Ellen’s hand while
she held Alice’s. The going was slow, but they made steady progress.
When they reached the road the meteors had slowed even more. They
couldn’t help but stumble across the drainage ditch, and they each
scrambled up the embankment, but they were so glad to be able to stand
again they didn’t mind.

When they got to David’s car, a mid-sized SUV, they all stood around
it as David got into the driver’s seat. Alice and Ellen ran their hands
over the exterior, noting how many small punctures there were along its
body. Neither was very confident that it would start. David took a deep
breath and turned the key, hoping for the best.

The car started up immediately, as if they’d just come out in the
morning, ready to take a new trip in a new car. David was amazed it had
managed to survive intact, but it just showed how random the damage done
was. In one instance a man was struck several times, in the other his
wife had wandered off unhurt, though still crushed by her loss. There
was no accounting for who or what was struck and what wasn’t.

The two girls cheered and started to get in, but Ellen remembered her
other things, so she went back to her car and scavenged whatever she
could from inside. While she was distracted David got out and checked
the car over, noticing an almost flat tire. He quickly changed it, with
Alice’s assistance. Ellen returned before he was finished with a few
things, including her purse, and after David finished with the tire she
climbed into the front seat, which Alice had left for her. Alice scooted
forward so she could talk to the two adults as David eased the car
forward, slowly entering the crater field before them.

His 4-wheel drive came in handy, as the crater was rugged, but he got
across to the far side and he sped up a bit, but still traveling
considerably slower than he had the previous day. The road was
pockmarked with craters of various sizes, along with a variety of
abandoned cars, but it looked like they’d be able to make it home. They
were glad, but they weren’t sure just how much things might have changed
over the past day.

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